imported post
#3 cylinder/carb issue?:?
I "saved" a 1985 aspencade from the horrors of a Kawasaki dealer, and now I am beginning to wonder, if I should have just kept on walking.
25,000 miles, very clean overall, when I picked it up, we had to push it on the trailer, I talked with the mechanic who rides a '88 goldwing to get as much history as possible on the bike, we put a new battery in it to get it to turn over, it would crank, but barely run.
According to the mechanic, the original owner had stored the bike for a loooong time, he took it to a Honda shop to get it back in service, Honda supposedly went through the carbs, put new timing belts, new plugs, and wires, and never could get the bike to run "correctly" owner took it to the Kawasaki shop, traded it in on a Kawasaki 4 wheeler, and the dealer took it on trade. The mechanic that worked on the bike said that he went again through the carbs, replaced the fuel filter and fuel pump, (aftermarket rated at 4 psi) and he pulled the right head off, because number 1 cylinder had low compression, and it does appear that he did that, after putting all back together, bike still ran the same. That shop sold it "needs engine work"
I bought with intentions of helping a friend get on a Gold Wing at a decent price, so we started back tracking over what had previously been done, pulled the lower fairings off and immediately found a leaking o ring on the water pipe on the right head, repaired that, pulled the timing covers to verify "new belts" new hondas, replaced the covers, did a cursory check of the timing, appeared to be right on, at this point I wish I had checked more closely, but 2 of us looked at it, and the other guy is younger with a lot better eyesight...LOL, anyway, the ugly new "yellow" plug wires were the next thing we looked at and low and behold, the right coil had two wires going to the right side, 1, 3, and the left coil had 2 wires going to 2, 4, which I guess to somebody made sense, probably would have to me at one point, regardless, we changed the wires, to the correct positions, verified that the coil connections were correct, then cranked the bike, and it was amazing how much different that it ran.
Put it all back together, thinking we had found the problem, changed all of the fluids, coolant, brake, clutch, oil and filter, and my friend took it for a 250 mile ride, came back said it did good except that it had a slight hesitation rolling the throttle at about 70, so my response at that point was "seafoam" and ride it, thought not much more about it. That was a couple of months ago, so the "friend" decided to move to another state, the 1200 came back home to me, since I already have 3 Gold Wings I did not need another, promptly put it up for sale, I had not ridden the bike at all at this point, so I take it out for a ride, and it actually will start bucking at 3000, 3200 rpm in any gear, and seems to get a little worse as the bike warms up, the rpms will get higher, but it is still continuously missing.
Yesterday, I decided to change the plugs, two reasons, we had not pulled the plugs, because they were supposedly new, and I wanted to see what they looked like, in fact they were new, and all looked good except, 3 seemed to have not been firing as it looked wetter that the other plugs, I changed them all anyway, after checking the gap. I cranked the bike, didn't sound any different, so I started pulling wires off individually, when I pulled 3 off, made no difference, in running, shut the bike down, and in trying the put the cap back on, it came off in my hand, in looking the wire had never been screwed on the cap terminal, remedied that, put wire back on, cranked it, noticeably difference, went back over each one of the caps found same thing on 2 others, after making sure that all 4 plugs were firing, and it was a noticably difference having 4 cyclinders versus 3, again I am thinking, well that solves that, put it back together, runs much better but still the same missing at higher rpms.
This morning I have removed all of the plastic again, and this time the false tank so I could get to the coil end of the wires, and the coils, I have measured the primary and secondary of the coils, through the wires, and both measurements track with what the manual describes, I then started trying to find the connector for the pulse generators, then realized my manual was describing the location for an '84, and the '85 is on the front, finally traced it and found it, I had run the bike long enough for it to have 6 bars showing, when I checked the resistance, it showed about 412 ohms on each one and testing to ground from each wire I found one lead that would measure very high resistance to ground, but only one, the one for 3, 4, cylinders. According to the manual that I have, the resistance should be 1200 ohms, I saw some comment on here that it should be in the 400 ohm range. Ater I read that, I went back out and measured again, the bike had cooled down considerably and the
the reading is 364 ohms, and the reading to ground is gone completely. Perhaps, this has been the whole issue all along? If you have documentation for the correct values I would appreciate it.
Thanks for reading, I needed the vent!
:ROFL:
Ben
#3 cylinder/carb issue?:?
I "saved" a 1985 aspencade from the horrors of a Kawasaki dealer, and now I am beginning to wonder, if I should have just kept on walking.
25,000 miles, very clean overall, when I picked it up, we had to push it on the trailer, I talked with the mechanic who rides a '88 goldwing to get as much history as possible on the bike, we put a new battery in it to get it to turn over, it would crank, but barely run.
According to the mechanic, the original owner had stored the bike for a loooong time, he took it to a Honda shop to get it back in service, Honda supposedly went through the carbs, put new timing belts, new plugs, and wires, and never could get the bike to run "correctly" owner took it to the Kawasaki shop, traded it in on a Kawasaki 4 wheeler, and the dealer took it on trade. The mechanic that worked on the bike said that he went again through the carbs, replaced the fuel filter and fuel pump, (aftermarket rated at 4 psi) and he pulled the right head off, because number 1 cylinder had low compression, and it does appear that he did that, after putting all back together, bike still ran the same. That shop sold it "needs engine work"
I bought with intentions of helping a friend get on a Gold Wing at a decent price, so we started back tracking over what had previously been done, pulled the lower fairings off and immediately found a leaking o ring on the water pipe on the right head, repaired that, pulled the timing covers to verify "new belts" new hondas, replaced the covers, did a cursory check of the timing, appeared to be right on, at this point I wish I had checked more closely, but 2 of us looked at it, and the other guy is younger with a lot better eyesight...LOL, anyway, the ugly new "yellow" plug wires were the next thing we looked at and low and behold, the right coil had two wires going to the right side, 1, 3, and the left coil had 2 wires going to 2, 4, which I guess to somebody made sense, probably would have to me at one point, regardless, we changed the wires, to the correct positions, verified that the coil connections were correct, then cranked the bike, and it was amazing how much different that it ran.
Put it all back together, thinking we had found the problem, changed all of the fluids, coolant, brake, clutch, oil and filter, and my friend took it for a 250 mile ride, came back said it did good except that it had a slight hesitation rolling the throttle at about 70, so my response at that point was "seafoam" and ride it, thought not much more about it. That was a couple of months ago, so the "friend" decided to move to another state, the 1200 came back home to me, since I already have 3 Gold Wings I did not need another, promptly put it up for sale, I had not ridden the bike at all at this point, so I take it out for a ride, and it actually will start bucking at 3000, 3200 rpm in any gear, and seems to get a little worse as the bike warms up, the rpms will get higher, but it is still continuously missing.
Yesterday, I decided to change the plugs, two reasons, we had not pulled the plugs, because they were supposedly new, and I wanted to see what they looked like, in fact they were new, and all looked good except, 3 seemed to have not been firing as it looked wetter that the other plugs, I changed them all anyway, after checking the gap. I cranked the bike, didn't sound any different, so I started pulling wires off individually, when I pulled 3 off, made no difference, in running, shut the bike down, and in trying the put the cap back on, it came off in my hand, in looking the wire had never been screwed on the cap terminal, remedied that, put wire back on, cranked it, noticeably difference, went back over each one of the caps found same thing on 2 others, after making sure that all 4 plugs were firing, and it was a noticably difference having 4 cyclinders versus 3, again I am thinking, well that solves that, put it back together, runs much better but still the same missing at higher rpms.
This morning I have removed all of the plastic again, and this time the false tank so I could get to the coil end of the wires, and the coils, I have measured the primary and secondary of the coils, through the wires, and both measurements track with what the manual describes, I then started trying to find the connector for the pulse generators, then realized my manual was describing the location for an '84, and the '85 is on the front, finally traced it and found it, I had run the bike long enough for it to have 6 bars showing, when I checked the resistance, it showed about 412 ohms on each one and testing to ground from each wire I found one lead that would measure very high resistance to ground, but only one, the one for 3, 4, cylinders. According to the manual that I have, the resistance should be 1200 ohms, I saw some comment on here that it should be in the 400 ohm range. Ater I read that, I went back out and measured again, the bike had cooled down considerably and the
the reading is 364 ohms, and the reading to ground is gone completely. Perhaps, this has been the whole issue all along? If you have documentation for the correct values I would appreciate it.
Thanks for reading, I needed the vent!
:ROFL:
Ben